 Mir being lowered into the water by the crane onAkademik Mstislav Keldysh | |
| History | |
|---|---|
  Russia | |
| Name | Mir |
| Builder | Rauma-Repola Oceanics / Lokomo, Finland |
| Completed | 1987 |
| Decommissioned | 2017 |
| In service | 1987 |
| Status | Laid Up |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Deep-submergence vehicle |
| Displacement | 18.6 tons |
| Length | 7.8 m (26 ft) |
| Beam | 3.6 m (12 ft) |
| Draft | 3.0 m (9.8 ft) |
| Installed power | 9 kW electric motor |
| Speed | 5 kn |
| Test depth | 6,000 m (20,000 ft) |
| Complement | 3 |
Mir (Russian:Мир,lit. 'world, peace') was a class of two self-propelleddeep-submergence vehicles. The project was initially developed by theUSSR Academy of Sciences (now theRussian Academy of Sciences) along withLazurit Central Design Bureau, and two vehicles were ordered fromFinland. TheMir-1 andMir-2, delivered in 1987, were designed and built by the Finnish companyRauma-Repola's Oceanics subsidiary. The project was carried out under the supervision of constructors and engineers of theShirshov Institute of Oceanology.
The vessels are designed to be used for scientific research. They might also be used to assist insubmarine rescue operations, although they do not have the capacity to take anybody aboard when underwater. The carrier and command centre of bothMirsubmersibles is theR/VAkademik Mstislav Keldysh. The twoMir units are operated by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Their military counterparts are theKonsul-class submersibles.
TheMir submersibles can dive to a maximum depth of 6,000 metres (19,685 ft).
Traditionally, the personnel sphere of a deep sea submersible is manufactured oftitanium plates that arewelded together. OnMir, the personnel sphere is made of amaraging steel alloy that has ten percent better strength/weight ratio than titanium.[1] This alloy contains about 30%cobalt and smaller amounts ofnickel,chrome andtitanium. Two hemispheres were made bycasting andmachining, and then bolted together, thus avoiding welded joints. The resulting construction is close to the density of water, thus making it easier to move in different depths. Additionalbuoyancy is provided by 8 cubic metres (280 cu ft) ofsyntactic foam.[1] Unlike other deep submergence vehicles that use iron ballast to reach the ocean floor, the buoyancy and depth is adjusted byballast tanks.[1]
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Production of the twoMir units was a prime example of Finnish-Soviet economic and technical co-operation during theCold War.
The technical specification for the creation of the devices was prepared by the head of the Department of Deep-sea Habitable Vehicles of the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, project manager Igor Mikhaltsev. The main ideas on the design of the submarines, the arrangement of its individual systems, nodes, elements, and the acquisition of scientific and navigation equipment belong to I. E. Mikhaltsev, his deputy A.M. Sagalevich and the chief engineer of the project from the Finnish shipbuilding company Sauli Ruohonen, who headed a group of Finnish engineers and technicians who participated in the construction of the submarines.
Bids from Canada, France and Sweden to construct the submarines had been retracted most likely due to political pressure. In a later interview withSTT the then Rauma-Repola department head Peter Laxell said he believed that "Finland got the permit to deliver the crafts to the Soviets on the basis that theCoCom officials in the USA believed the project would be a failure ... Once it became clear to them we actually had accomplished the engineering feat there was a huge uproar about how such technology could be sold to the Soviets, enough for many visits tothe Pentagon."[3]
Because of theCoCom restrictions, most of the technology used had to bedeveloped in Finland. The electronics was developed by Hollming. The syntactic foam was produced in Finland byExel Oyj, as3M, the leading producer, refused to supply their product.[1] The construction, including casting, was done byLokomo (a Rauma-Repola subsidiary) in Tampere, Finland.
The level of technology flowing into theSoviet Union raised concern in the US and Rauma-Repola was privately threatened with economic sanctions. For example, one concern of the Pentagon was the possibility that the Soviet Union would manufacture a pioneer submarine fleet that could clear the ocean floor of USdeep sea listening equipment.[1] With the possibility of losing its lucrative offshoreoil platforms market Rauma-Repola yielded, and submarine development ceased in Finland. One project that was abandoned was the development of afuel cell basedair-independent propulsion system.
The 122 m length support vessel R/VAkademik Mstislav Keldysh was also built in Finland, at theHollming shipyard inRauma in 1980 (later operated by STX Finland, closed in 2014).[4]
In 1998 theMirs were utilized in the filming and photography of the sunkenJapanese submarineI-52 for aNational Geographic television special and a magazine article. Aboard the Russian R/VKeldysh for over five weeks in the mid-Atlantic, the film crew documented the search by treasure seeker Paul Tidwell for the alleged two tons of gold that was on theI-52's cargo manifest.
Director of photography William Mills and National Geographic photographerJonathan Blair made multiple dives inMir-1 andMir-2 alongside their Russian pilotsAnatoly Sagalevich inMir-1 andYevgeny Chernyaev inMir-2, to a depth of 5240 metres, a mile and a half deeper than theTitanic wreck. Although no gold was ever recovered, the expedition was documented in a National Geographic television special,Search for the Submarine I-52.
The earlier discovery of the wreck was made possible through the work of Tom Detweller andDavid W. Jourdan and their team at Nauticos, LLC. Mills would join the Nauticos team in 2001 in their ongoing efforts to locateAmelia Earhart'sLockheed L10-E aircraft in the Pacific.
In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, theMir vehicles were used by Canadian film directorJames Cameron to filmthe wreck of theRMSTitanic, resting at a depth of 3,821 metres, for his 1997 filmTitanic and documentaries such asGhosts of the Abyss, and to film the wreck of theGerman battleshipBismarck, resting at a depth of 4,700 metres, for his 2002 documentary filmExpedition: Bismarck.
In 2000RMS Titanic Inc. co-founder G. Michael Harris served as expedition leader. He conducted over 120 hours on the wreck of the Titanic and made eleven dives in the expedition, utilizing bothMir-1 andMir-2. Record of this expedition was made by artist Roger Bansemer in his bookJourney to Titanic.[5] Artifacts gathered from this exhibition are on display atTitanic: The Artifact Exhibition inOrlando, Florida, the largest Titanic exhibition in the world.[6]
In 2005 an unnamed expedition to the Titanic was made. The expedition is documented in an hour and fourteen minute video by artist Roger Bansemer.[7] The expedition left fromSt. John's, Newfoundland aboard the Keldysh. On June 12, 2017, a part of the expedition aired onPBS seriesPainting and Travel with Roger and Sarah Bansemer in episode 12,Journey to Titanic.
On August 2, 2007, Russia used theMir submersibles to perform the first manned descent to the seabed under theGeographic North Pole, to a depth of 4,261 m, to scientifically research the region in relation to the2001 Russian territorial claim. TheMir-1 crew: pilotAnatoly Sagalevich; polar explorerArthur Chilingarov; andVladimir Gruzdev. TheMir-2 crew were international: Russian pilotYevgeny Chernyaev;AustralianMike McDowell;SwedeFrederik Paulsen.[8]
On the seabedMir-1 planted a one-metre-tall rustproofflag of Russia, made oftitanium alloy atOKB "Fakel" inKaliningrad,[9] and left atime capsule, containing a message for future generations and a flag ofUnited Russia.[10] "If a hundred or a thousand years from now someone goes down to where we were, they will see the Russian flag there", saidChilingarov[11]Soil and watersamples of the seabed were taken during the mission.[9] International scepticism regarding the Russian mission was put forward byPeter MacKay, Canada's foreign minister, andTom Casey, deputy spokesman of theUS State Department, who argued that Russian claim of the Arctic has no legal standing.[11]
A short time after announcement of the polar expedition, some newspapers tried to stir up controversy by claiming the expedition was fake because some of the footage was from James Cameron's movieTitanic. A Russian television network had used theTitanic footage (for which it holds thecopyright) as an illustration of the deep-sea vessels in action. They had shown this hours before theMir submersibles had arrived on the Arctic seabed, and they had pointed out that the footage was from the movie, not a transmission from the site.Reuters did not note this information when it carried the story, and used the pictures wrongly captioned. Reuters later apologized and issued a statement reading in part: "Reuters mistakenly identified this file footage as originating from the Arctic, and not the North Atlantic where the footage was shot", and they reposted the story with correct captions.[12][13]
In July 2008 bothMir submersibles began a two-year expedition toLake Baikal, the world's largestfreshwater lake. The expedition is being led by the Russian Academy of Sciences.[14] The group's mission chief said that a total of 60 dives were planned.[15] On July 29, theMir-1 andMir-2 submersibles reached the bottom of Lake Baikal, making the 1.05-mile (1,690 m) descent.[15] On August 1, Russian Prime MinisterVladimir Putin accompanied the dive in the southern portion of the lake.[16]
In 2011, both submersibles were part of a scientific exploration program inLake Geneva calledelemo (exploration des eaux lémaniques), in which researchers conducted studies in areas such as bacteriology andmicropollutants, as well as exploring Lake Geneva's geology and physics.[17] The submersibles arrived on Lake Geneva in May 2011.[18]
The Mir-1 is currently on display at theMuseum of the World Ocean [ru] inKaliningrad and the Mir-2 at the Atlantic Division ofShirshov Institute of Oceanology in Kaliningrad, from where, upon completion of the new building of the Institute of Oceanology at Nakhimovsky Prospekt inMoscow, it will be moved to the museum of the Institute to be established there.
